An Act Of Aggression Is Still Wrong

I'm angry beyond words at this:  Transgender Woman's Jail Treatment Prompts Complaints

Baxter said Griffith was concerned about her safety and asked to be put into protective custody. 

Guards moved her to the protective custody section and placed her in a cell with two accused male sex offenders, Baxter said.

We've heard this kind of BS before, and not long ago.

Let me be abundantly clear on this:

Placing a transgender woman in a male prison facility is just plain wrong.  It puts the prisoner in a situation of unprecedented danger.  Placing such a prisoner in the same cell as two sex offenders is incomprehensibly stupid.

However, let's put the outrage over these two incidents to one side for a minute and reflect on the situations and what they tell us about our prison system.

First, I recognize that prisons are necessarily going to be fairly conservative in how they run.  There is a lot of ugly issues that emerge when incarcerating people, and a lot of those behind bars aren't going to be very happy about it.  So, fair enough, guards have a tough lot.

That said, they are still intelligent agents in their actions.  Under what circumstances does placing someone who is known to be transgender in a male prison cell make sense?  (especially in the case of Avery Edison, who was so obviously female in her presentation)  Under what circumstances does it make sense to put that person in the same cell as a pair of male sexual offenders?

It doesn't.  It cannot.  Unless one looks at it as an act of cruelty on the part of the guards.

The only way this makes sense is if the guards believe that their role is to mete out arbitrary punishment over and above what incarceration already is.

Where would they get this idea?  In part from the ongoing flood of US entertainment nonsense that streams across our borders, no doubt.  But also because the policy environment that they live in enables them to ape the kind of behaviours that are commonly shown in television programs.

I suspect strongly that the guards in the Katlynn Griffith case were doing it because they were in a position of power, and they decided it would be "fun" to see what happens.  In an era where our governments are becoming progressively more aggressive and punitive, the message to the prison apparatus is clear:  be nasty - we won't stop you.

When the police have been granted extraordinary powers of search and seizure at the roadside, and the laws are being overhauled to impose ever harsher penalties, it isn't hard to see how the mentality that is being pushed by our federal government is being reflected in the actions of the civil servants tasked with enacting the resulting laws and policies.

The fact that we still have policies in place that say we must incarcerate people based on what is dangling between their legs (or not), says a great deal about a government which has become all about not just punishing offenders, but extending that punishment in as many directions as possible.

Incarceration is the government removing an offender's (or accused's) liberty.  It does not, to my knowledge, suspend the right to Security of the Person.  Guards who place someone in a situation that is inherently dangerous are violating that fundamental right, and are failing to do their job - which is to keep prisoners from escaping on one side, but to keep the prisons relatively safe at the same time.

Conservatives: Punish, Punish, Punish

Canada's Harper Government once again revealed the ugly side of its views this past week.

First up, we have the Harper Government axing the pittance that inmates are paid for their labour while in prison.

The government began deducting the money from prisoners’ paycheques as part of a move to recover costs under the federal government’s Deficit Reduction Action Plan. The move was first announced in May 2012 by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Until now, the top pay an inmate could earn was $6.90 a day, but only a small percentage of inmates received that. The average is $3 a day.

This is being done in the name of "cutting the deficit".  Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?  Well, let's take a look at how much is being cut, shall we?

According to correctional service figures, the move will save about $4 million a year out of the total budget of more than $2.6 billion.

So, the government is going to save a whole $4 million.  That is 0.15% of the corrections budget in savings.  That's right - less than 1% - the equivalent of a penny with respect to a hundred dollar bill.

The amount of money that is involved is peanuts.  This kind of "budget cutting" is simply mean-spirited.  While the government is trying to balance the books, with a projected deficit of $18.7 billion for this fiscal year, taking this money out of the prison system seems petty, and pound-foolish.  The amount prisoners get paid hasn't been changed since the current rate was set in 1980 - so it's not exactly like the prisoners are getting anything more than a bit of "mad money" to spend at the commissary once in a while.  If it helps keep the peace in the prisons - and after they are released, that's pretty damn cheap.

The second part of the nastiness of the Conservatives came in the form of Health Minister Rona Ambrose changing  the rules on a special, limited access drug program "so that drug addicts can't be prescribed heroin".

The ban comes a few weeks after Ambrose slammed her own department's decision to authorize some British Columbia doctors to prescribe heroin to 20 addicts for whom other treatments had failed. 

The doctors were conducting a research study looking at whether the opioid painkiller hydromorphone is as effective as heroin in treating long-term addicts. 

A previous study by the same researchers had concluded prescription heroin is a safe and effective treatment for the small group of addicts who did not benefit from conventional treatments such as methadone.  

 So, what the minister has done is take away a tool that is effective for the subset of addicts that do not benefit from conventional treatment.  Given that heroin addiction is a physiological addiction, there is a significant biological aspect to it which means that every addict is going to be somewhat different, and the ability of one addict to stop taking it tells us very little about whether or not someone else will be able to do the same thing.  This ham-handed change does nothing but punish those whose addiction to heroin is the most debilitating.

Then the minister came out with a whopper of an assertion to support her position:

In an interview with the CBC yesterday, Health Minister Rona Ambrose said there was “no evidence” to suggest heroin-assisted treatment was a safe and effective option. Actually, she used variations on the phrase seven times in the space of seven minutes. 

There is no evidence at this point that heroin—giving heroin to heroin addicts—is any way an effective treatment… 

As I said, there is no evidence that this is an effective, safe treatment… 

There is no evidence at this time, no clinical evidence… 

There is no clear evidence to suggest that this a safe treatment and it’s not a good idea for Health Canada, for Health Canada, to be supporting giving heroin to heroin addicts when there’s no scientific evidence that this is a safe treatment… 

There is no evidence at this time…

 As Maclean's writer Aaron Wherry points out, the minister is full of it:

Here is a 176-page report that was released last year by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. It was prepared by researchers with the National Addiction Centre at King’s College in England. In addition to considering the history and context around heroin-assisted treatment, the authors review the results of six randomized controlled trials, conducted in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, England and Canada respectively.

In short there is evidence - it just happens to contradict the Harper Government's assumptions.  That they would disregard it is no real surprise - since coming to power, Harper has done everything he can to remove meaningful data from policy making.  Whether that is axing funding to Status of Women related research funding, killing the long-form census, or turning NSERC research funding into "industrial product development",  Harper has moved consistently to hobble anything which would objectively challenge his assumptions.

The motto of this government might as well be "Let no fact challenge our assumptions".

First They Came For ...

As if it was any real surprise, but the Conservatives are making yet another attack on people that they don't think have any voice, rights or for that matter might not even be human in their eyes.

This time, it's more of the ugly truth of the Conservative agenda - the one that Harper and his buddies don't talk about out loud.

The Conservative government plans to bring in an American-style prison system that will cost billions of taxpayer dollars and do little to improve public safety

A panel led by Rob Sampson, a former corrections minister in Ontario's Mike Harris government, drafted the government plan, which is being implemented by the Correctional Service.

In addition to constructing super prisons and implementing work programs, the program will eliminate gradual release and deny inmates rights that are now entrenched in the constitution.

By stressing punishment rather than rehabilitation, the plan ignores lessons of the past, which led to the prison riots and killings that dominated Canadian news in the early 1970s, said Jackson.

"My greatest fear is with this road map's agenda and its underlying philosophy, we will enter a new period of turmoil and violence in Canadian prisons," he said.

Great. Just great. Let's emulate the US system - where California's prisons are so overcrowded, the courts have ordered them emptied, and nearly a full percent of the US population is incarcerated under "get tough on crime" laws that incarcerate blindly, and take no steps to rehabilitate the prisoner.

Worse, the HarperCon$ are plotting to set up an environment where the already acknowledged legal rights of the prisoners are denied. How delightful. Considering that they have already gone after "Women, special interest groups and socialists", and that they are now setting the stage for an ideologically based attack on prisoners (a group which has even less political clout), just whom might be next on their agenda of establishing a hierarchy of rights? (You know, where those who vote Tory Blue get preferential treatment)

... and they are doing this behind closed doors. This is not being proposed in Parliament; there is no debate over whether such policy directions are either constitutional or practical. (Those who have lived in Alberta will recognize this pattern as consistent with the sense of entitlement that the PC's have developed here - they not only don't believe that they are accountable to the public, they don't even consider the public interest - it's purely ideology)

So ... who will speak for you when they come?

TransBashing Matt Barber Speaks On HRT For Inmates

Sometimes, looking over the fence into the cesspool of neoChristianist media is a frustrating horror show - especially when they start bashing GLBT people.

Being transgender in a prison can't be a pleasant experience - especially if one has not had surgery yet. It's particularly nasty if the adminstrators won't even provide access to treatment.

So ... two inmates sued. That's good news. In fact, the revised policies that Idaho is implementing are quite interesting:

The new policy says inmates must be given information about available treatment for gender identity disorder, that inmates can't be harassed by staffers for having been evaluated for the disorder, and that they must be moved to appropriate housing units while they are evaluated. It also spells out that outside consultants may assist in the diagnosis and that a recommendation for treatment must be completed within two months of a gender identity disorder diagnosis.

Also under the new policy, if an inmate is taking cross-sex hormones when they enter prison, they will be allowed to continue unless another medical condition makes it unsafe or inadvisable to continue.

Then there is what comes out of neoChristian wingnuttia:

Barber believes prison officials are doing transgendered inmates a disservice. "The American Psychological Association still considers gender confusion -- GID, gender identity disorder -- a disorder. It is a mental disorder," he contends.

According to Barber, prisons throughout the U.S. should help suffering inmates to overcome their gender delusions.

Barber...Barber?...That sounds familiar... oh right, that Matt Barber.

Ironically, what Mr. Barber ignores is that the WPATH Standards of Care actually recommend the very treatment he is opposing:

After the diagnosis of GID is made the
therapeutic approach usually includes three elements or phases (sometimes labeled triadic therapy): a real-life experience in the desired role, hormones of the desired gender, and surgery to change the genitalia and other sex characteristics.
...
Typically, triadic therapy takes place in the
order of hormones = = > real-life experience = = > surgery

Additionally, Barber doesn't seem to understand that a GID diagnosis bears no resemblance whatsoever to either clinical delusion or other disorders. In fact, those other conditions would explicitly preclude a GID diagnosis until dealt with adequately from a clinical perspective.

Reasons Legal Equality Matters

I'm ashamed to say that the following story is taking place here in Canada: Transsexual Quebec inmate sentenced to serve time in male prison [TRIGGER WARNING: The crimes involved in the inmate's are not pretty]

A court-appointed lawyer who assisted Veilleux at her trial says tensions boiled over at the women's facility because while Veilleux is legally a woman, she still has male sexual organs.

At least one of female detainee didn't appreciate sharing space with Veilleux, said lawyer Andre Boissonneault. "Legally she is a woman but she hasn't had her operation, so she's partly a man," Boissonneault said.

Okay, I can understand that Ms. Veilleux has not yet had surgery, fair enough. However, Corrections Canada blew it in their handling of Ms. Veilleux:

Boissonneault said provincial jail officials went to great lengths to accommodate Veilleux, including keeping other inmates behind bars while she bathed and changed.

"Then she was sentenced to 40-months in prison and instead of sending her to a prison for women, they sent her to a prison for men," Boissonneault said.

Mistake 1: Punishing other prisoners for her presence. Locking the rest of the population up while Veilleux showers or changes is a mistake - a huge one. That's a recipe for creating tensions, no doubt about it. It also affirms the commonly held assumption that a transsexual gender is somehow "less valid" than that of others.

Mistake 2: Placing Ms. Veilleux in a Men's prison. I'm sorry, but that is wrong on so many levels it's not funny; worse, it actually places Ms. Veilleux in personal danger.

Mistake 3: Did the prison that Ms. Veilleux was held in take any steps to educate the other prisoners? They are as much a part of the story here as Ms. Veilleux. From what has been described, I suspect that they did not take such steps, or worse they only took a bare minimum approach. (The actions taken by the prison (Mistake 1) suggest to me that they may not even have done that much, but that is purely speculation)

Granted, Prisons are not nice places, nor are they expected to be. That said, someone who has transitioned (is living full time in gender, and has undertaken steps such as legal name change) and is now living as a woman is guaranteed to be a target when housed in a men's-only institution.

Now, the first piece of advice to anyone who is planning to transition is pretty simple - Don't do anything stupid that gets you tossed in jail. However, reality is that transfolk are like the rest of the population, and some will inevitably do things that are illegal, and some do wind up in prison.

For prisons and the legal system, this situation means that there is a need to find ways to accommodate transsexuals who are incarcerated. Filing people based on what's between their legs doesn't work in this case, and can result in horrific situations. We don't incarcerate people to denigrate them, and we certainly don't do so to put them in situations where they will be raped repeatedly at the hands of others (last I checked, rape is crime in its own right - even when it occurs in a prison).

Unfortunately, what we have here is currently a situation involving a prisoner in a legally ambiguous state, and the bureaucracy running the prisons isn't responding to the situation constructively.